Bill Clinton was in town this weekend to announce the kickoff of CGI U — aka the Clinton Global Initiative University.

Before I jump out of the gate with my cynicism, let me qualify all of the remarks I’m about to make by saying that I wholeheartedly embrace the spirit of what Clinton is doing with the CGI. He could retire to his library and the honorarium circuit in his retirement, but like Jimmy Carter, he’s making better use of his high profile status as an ex-President in an effort to take a lead on issues of education, energy and climate change, health, and poverty alleviation. Can anyone really imagine Ass Monkey of the Planet doing anything more meaningful or effective than just clearing brush on his faux ranch in retirement?

I have also acquired a fairly profound respect for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right foundation to help build 150 energy-efficient, environmentally-safe homes in the Lower Ninth Ward by the end of this summer — just for starters.

That said, I’m a little perturbed by Clinton’s patting himself on the back all the time. The front page of the CGI web site features a gratuitous “golly gee” picture of Clinton surrounded by smiling brown-faced kids in Africa. It’s as though the man told the kids he was Santa Claus, or Jesus. I’d be a little less cynical of Clinton’s endeavor if he didn’t use the pronoun “I” so liberally, as in “I started CGI in 2005 to …” Having said that, I can’t really find any fault with any project whose mission is to bring attention to the very issues which New Orleans faces, and who has gone out of his way to put cameras, volunteers, and cash, back into the neglected Lower Ninth Ward.

In the same sentiment, I can’t really find fault with CNN (or Fox) for spending a lot of money to get their media operation into the Lower Nine to cover the groundbreaking for the first of the “Brad Houses” as residents are calling them, even though CNN (or Fox) was shooshing away Columbia University volunteers (and me) for ruining the shots they wanted of the depopulated, desolate Lower Nine.

Sure, it was a photo op. But we don’t get enough photo ops to raise attention to the issues which New Orleans is struggling with — and which are relevant to the future well-being of the rest of the nation if anyone cares to pay attention. But we need more than photo ops. We need substance and action — that, at least, is what Brad Pitt is doing in the absence of any meaningful leadership from local, state, and federal officials (it’s noteworthy that Ray Nagin was nowhere in sight).

We all ought to be grateful to Brad for that commitment, and Bill Clinton as well. Whatever the motives — self-serving or not — if positive attention and action result, they’ve done good deeds.

With that qualifier dutifully out of the way, I have a set of photos I took at the groundbreaking event on this gorgeous Sunday morning.

CNN has a pair of videos capturing Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt walking through the Lower Ninth Ward, and digging their spades into the dirt. CNN dropped in the sound of shovels to make it seem as though there was lots of work being done, even though, in reality, lots of well-meaning student volunteers were really there to do nothing more than wear blue Clinton CGI U T-shirts for a photo shoot.

As an aside, the Clinton speaking event at Tulane University on Saturday was a zoo of caterers running around, muscular GQ wanna-be goons patrolling the area, and all the pretty people from the press who’ve asserted their right to a slice of fame in the rarified air of high-stakes corporate media.

CNN’s Fox’s Greta Van Susteren interviewed Clinton on an empty slab left behind after the home that was there was washed away by the federal flood after Hurricane Katrina passed.

How cute! They were both wearing cowboy boots.

The setting in the Lower Ninth Ward dramatically brought attention to the fact that with just a handful of exceptions, two and a half years after the federal flood, almost no homes have been rebuilt. A CNN (or Fox) person shooshed me away when I took this picture, even though I was ought of range of the video cameras. All I can imagine is that they were protecting their exclusive right to access to Clinton, and any content. I couldn’t tell from this distance, but it’s also possible that CNN (or Fox) didn’t want pictures taken of Bill’s bulge for Greta, but, of course, that’s just speculation. Sorry — I know that’s a cheap shot, but if celebrities want positive press from these events, they’re going to have to start getting savvy to the reality that bloggers won’t take kindly to being shooshed away.

Rolls of pink material used to display Brad Pitt’s pink houses alongside the reconstructed levee wall (looking north by northeast).

Common Ground volunteers from Columbia University had just arrived a day earlier. They didn’t have their work assignment yet, but when they got in the way of the CNN cameras, they were shooshed away, and found a spot next to the reconstructed levee wall to relax.

There wasn’t much work that could be done in three hours on a Sunday morning — with an hour of downtime for Clinton’s interview — but the Clinton University extras put on a good display for the cameras. All of the students wore blue CGI U T-shirts, and were given shovels. Common Ground volunteers built wheelbarrows for the CGI U students to use, but there wasn’t much work being done. Common Ground volunteers said that the tools were going to be left behind for them to use, and the wheelbarrows would be returned. Nevertheless, they weren’t invited to get into the camera shots.

Clinton and Pitt visit with the crowd before their departure. A brass band in the background played for about five minutes. Residents call Brad by his first name, and he’s known to drive down to the Lower Nine at any time, and will spontaneously jump out of the car to hug and talk to residents.

Here’s Brad Pitt talking to Holy Cross leader Pam Dashiell (wearing the green shirt on the left), New Orleans Sierra Club leader Darryl Malek Wiley (in the green Holy Cross T-shirt on the right).

Whether by choice or order, Common Ground founder Malik Rahim was off to the side for much of the event.

Foundation piers stand like gravestones in the overgrown empty lots of the Lower Ninth Ward.

The Common Ground center was bustling, with real volunteers doing real work during Common Ground’s Spring Crush of Spring Break vacationers, working in the community garden, and just behind the center, the first home being rebuilt by Common Ground was a hive of activity, with volunteers from Marquette University floating sheetrock. The barge which drifted in over the levee wall struck this house, incidentally, caving in the portion of the house being sheetrocked in the next photo.

The Mississippi River is nearing its highest depth in over ten years, and spring floods haven’t peaked yet. Here, water is already at the foot of the river levee in Holy Cross.

Photo: Keith I. Marszalek / NOLA.com

Maybe Clinton would have made a better impression on me if he’d have invited the cameras to turn their attention on the Common Ground volunteers busting their asses to rebuild a home, or if he had respectfully observed yet another uniquely New Orleans annual tradition, Super Sunday, and had rescheduled the groundbreaking.

Anyway, a lot of this is just nitpicking. I hope Bill spends more time in New Orleans in the future, as Brad is doing now. As people like the next Vice President, Mitch Landrieu, know (Mary would do as well), as New Orleans goes, so goes the nation. That’s why we need to make of New Orleans a model for how to get things right on a host of issues the rest of the nation will be dealing with in the future.